Damian Thompson is Editor of Telegraph Blogs and a columnist for the Daily Telegraph. He was once described by The Church Times as a "blood-crazed ferret". He is on Twitter as HolySmoke. His latest book is The Fix: How addiction is taking over your world. He also writes about classical music for The Spectator.

Britain’s Christian leaders really are useless, aren’t they? This week Archbishop Rowan Williams treated us to yet another Solemn Wringing of the Hands on behalf of the poor misunderstood rioters. Meanwhile, Archbishop Vincent Nichols delivered some narcotic platitudes about the need for Christians to be heard in the “public square”. You have to wonder: do we have any bishops left who believe in their own authority and revel in the power of their office?

As it happens, we do. Let me introduce you to the loopy world of episcopi vagantes – “wandering bishops” – which is springing back to life now that the Anglican Communion is tearing itself into tiny pieces.

“Independent bishops”, as they prefer to be known these days, are men and women who have left the mainstream Churches and got themselves consecrated “bishop” by someone who claims to have authentic episcopal orders. Normally these orders will have been passed down from the Roman Catholic or Orthodox Churches via a breakaway group such as the Old Catholics of the Netherlands. If you have a spare couple of hours, try asking one of these bishops to take you through his or her episcopal pedigree. Trainspotters have nothing on these guys.

As a rule, the grandeur of a self-styled bishop’s title, robes and ceremonies is in inverse proportion to the size of his Church. So the Metropolitan Archbishop of Great Britain and the Colonies, Supreme Patriarch of the Reformed Western Orthodox Church (Ethiopian Rite), will devote four hours to his Pontifical High Mass in his Cathedral, otherwise known as the sitting room of No 3, Gasworks Lane, Edgbaston. Also in the sanctuary: the Master of Ceremonies (the missus) and the deacon and sub-deacon (the kids). Congregation: Hilda from next door, who will stay on for Strictly Come Dancing once the ceremonies are over.

The classic book on this subculture is Bishops At Large by Peter Anson, published in 1963, by which time the phenomenon was already a century old. Anson lovingly details the theatrical schisms that led the bishops – electricity clerks during the week but dripping with lace and gold embroidery on Sundays – to excommunicate each other in “synods” held in railway hotels.

It looked as if the amateur bishops would die out. But the internet has revived this strange hobby. I’m looking right now at the website of a gloriously bedecked prelate who used to run a dry-cleaning business.

Some of these bishops are ultra-liberal. This week I received an email from a tiny denomination run by a very pompous woman bishop and lesbian rights campaigner furiously anathematising one of her rivals. (I won’t mention names, because these folk are pathologically litigious.)

But it’s the high-camp Anglo-Catholics you need to watch. For years many have been behaving like prince-bishops in their parishes. But now the C of E wants to get rid of them, and they can’t face the discipline of Rome. So I’m expecting a number of traddies to flounce out of their vicarages to join (or set up) an outfit where they can receive the mitre that’s always been denied them.

I can’t wait. Witnessing a DIY bishop in full flow is easily as much fun as seeing some old trout dance the fandango on Strictly. A colleague once interviewed an “independent” prelate who turned up wearing a dog collar underneath a raincoat flecked with cigarette ash. “Good morning, Reverend,” my friend said respectfully.

The little chap drew himself up to his full height and replied: “Your Holiness, if you don’t mind.”

What are you waiting for, Sharon?

I hate to sound as if I’m enjoying other people’s distress, but what a difficult time the Lib Dems are having right now. I’m thinking in particular of Sharon Bowles, “one of the most influential Members of the European Parliament”, whose “expertise and hard work have received many plaudits” (from herself – I’m quoting her website). She was on telly yesterday, threatening to become an Irish citizen, such was her outrage at events in Brussels. Good idea – but why stop at Sharon? There aren’t many parties that could teach Irish politicians about the dark art of doorstep innuendo, but the British Lib Dems certainly could. They should decamp en masse to the Dáil.

Hillary’s brush with danger

'What has happened to Hillary’s hair?” asked Tory blogger Tim Montgomerie on Twitter the other day. Tim knows his barnets, so I clicked on the link and – yikes!

The US Secretary of State was sporting what’s known in England as a “Croydon facelift”. You know: hair savagely pulled back from the forehead into a bun or ponytail. The subsequent lifting of the skin irons out wrinkles, it’s true, but therein lies the danger. Girls end up pulling out their hair at the roots, resulting in “traction alopecia”.

I don’t want to sound snobbish, but does Mrs Clinton really want to look as if she’s heading off for a night on the Bacardi at Roxy’s nightclub? And she won’t quell those rumours about the state of her marriage if she’s spotted dancing round her handbag.

An even better way to get an A

One thing we learned from The Daily Telegraph’s investigation into exam-coaching seminars for teachers is that questions about “Fair Trade” feature very prominently in geography exams.

That rings depressingly true. Fairtrade coffee may no longer be the brown dishwater that Labour local authorities once forced on their employees, but the topic is still fertile territory for professional bores of the Left. And, let’s face it, there’s no bore like a schoolteacher with strong views on “ethical sourcing of products”. Those poor pupils!

Why anyone should pay good money to be told that this subject is likely to crop up in exams is beyond me, however. Surely any idiot can work the system (at least until Gove reforms it). My advice to teachers is simple. If you make sure your classes are about Fairtrade products, climate change, the Third Reich and nothing else, then that’s three Grade A* grades guaranteed. In any subject.

The red pen of Gott returns

I see that Richard Gott, former literary editor of the Guardian, has published a book entitled Britain’s Empire: Resistance, Repression and Revolt. According to Tory MP Kwasi Kwarteng, reviewing it in Literary Review, Gott cites “instances of imperial brutality with an almost gleeful precision”. I’ll bet. What Kwarteng doesn’t mention is that Gott was named as a KGB “agent of influence” by The Spectator in 1994. He denied being an actual agent – but he resigned from the Guardian, admitting that “I took red gold, even if only in the form of expenses”. In other words, Gott’s palm was greased by a regime that killed 20 million people. No wonder he writes so authoritatively about imperial brutality.